Hoodie Allen

Hi hello, I'm back I'm back I'm back! With another music recommendation!

I'm sure most of the people reading this know him already but I wanted to write about him anyway.

The artist I want to talk about today is Steven Markowitz (stage name: Hoodie Allen) an independent rapper and singer from New York.

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and working at Google, Hoodie decided (because it was too exhausting having two full-time jobs - his job at Google and writing and producing songs at the same time) to become a full-time rapper.
He released several mixtapes between 2009 and 2012 ('Bagels & Beats', 'Making Waves' & 'Pep Rally' including songs like 'You Are Not A Robot' and 'Leap Year')
In 2012 Hoodie released an EP called 'All American' and music videos for 'No Interruption' - one of his most successful songs - and 'No Faith In Brooklyn'.
Hoodie wanted to promote his next mixtape 'Crew Cuts' (Crew Cuts jackets are on sale right now xoxo) and released his songs 'Cake Boy' and 'Fame Is For Assholes' and before deciding to put out his debut album 'People Keep Talking' he released his first acoustic EP 'Americoustic'.

Whilst releasing music Hoodie did nothing but tour and tour and tour, a few weeks ago he even toured with Fall Out Boy and Wiz Khalifa and damn I wish I would've been able to go to one of those shows because everyone was talking about how amazing it was seeing Hoodie grow and perform in front of such a huge audience.
Another thing Hoodie never stopped doing is tweeting his fans and answering fan mails and basically doing everything to stay in contact with his fans.
And let me tell you one thing: He's still one of the, if not THE most active artist on Twitter, he's answering questions, thanking fans for listening to his music and appreciating him and his work, he just makes everyone feel loved and special. And for me, as a fan, having the feeling of being special to one of my favourite musicians is such a happiness booster every single day.

Let's talk about Hoodie's live shows now.
And. Let's be honest.
I've been to a lot of concerts and a few festivals in my life but Hoodie's show was one of the most fun and energetic concerts I've ever been to. He was dancing around and making jokes and singing and screaming and having so much fun and everyone around me was smiling the whole time and was just so into his performance and wow I wish I could go to Hoodie concerts 365 days a year.

Let me talk about what Hoodie does before he even goes on stage. He's trying to meet everyone who's waiting in line for hours and hours in front of the venues, he's talking to as many fans as he can, he's taking selfies and the most important thing: he's always nice and kind of shy and he always tries to make everyone happy and damn he's successful.

I know I'm "only" a fan and that I don't know every single thing that's going on in his life and I know that he's a normal person and that even someone like Hoodie Allen, who is one of the most energetic and kindest people I've ever met, has bad days, but to be honest, that's ok. I - and everyone else in the so called 'Mob' (Hoodie calls his group of fans the Mob) - appreciates him as a musician and him as the person he's showing us with his tweets and livestreams and meetings etc. and his music will ALWAYS be there for us and makes us happy and I feel like this is one of the most amazing jobs you can have. Making so many  people happy every single day by doing the things you love must be such an undescribable feeling and I'm so proud of him and everything he does for us - his fans, his friends, his family.

Hoodie Allen made his way up from being the unknown underground rapper to being the well-known 'hipster hopper' (just joking, Wikipedia called his genre hipster hop and I can't stop making fun of it) and maybe he's not at the top yet, but I'm sure he'll be there soon, performing next to Fall Out Boy and Ed Sheeran (one of his best buddies by the way) at the Grammys and getting the recognition he deserves.

At the moment, Hoodie is planning on releasing a new mixtape in the next couple of weeks and touring America and Europe again as soon as possible, until then we (and you) can listen to his first and newest songs on SoundCloud (http://soundcloud.com/hoodieallenmusic), Spotify or YouTube (http://youtube.com/hoodieallen) and pray for Hoodie to take those Crew Cut Jackets, sunglasses and black and white posters with him to Europe next year and that he's not playing shows in our cities when we're writing exams.

To finish this blogpost, all I have to say is that Hoodie is one of the nicest and most talented artists out there, if you haven't been listening to one of his songs or been to one of his live shows: PLEASE check him out right now, he really is working so hard and loves his job and he does so much for his fans and we sadly don't have that many artists out there anymore that are honest and that care more about their fans than about money and fame.
Hoodie is always asking us for our opinions, wants to know what we think of certain songs he just put out or merch and he even starts thinking about how he could interact with - an app or a special chat - with his fans even more than he already does. He invented 'HoodieHelp', an E-Mail thing you can send messages to if you want to talk about something you worry about and either Hoodie or one of a few chosen fans will try to help you. And to be honest, do you know any artist that would do stuff like that to make their fans happier and to make them feel like there is always someone that cares about them and that life is going on and on, even if it doesn't feel like it will be? No? Because I don't know anyone either.

I hope I could make clear to anyone reading this how much of a special person Hoodie is. He saves lives and he helps people surviving every single day and HE CARES ABOUT EVERY SINGLE FAN.

So please go check him out, I personally love him a lot and I could never thanhim enough for everything he's done for me, because of him I got to know some of my best friends and even met some of them even though they live all over Germany and The Netherlands.

Lots of love and have fun listening to him and falling in love with him because let's be honest: You can't NOT fall in love with this precious muffin.

Talk to you soon, Vivi.



PS.: Hoodie is also SUCH an inspiring (most of the time weird, but late at night sentimental) Twitter guy and even his Instagram quotes are SO deep sometimes (*cough* sarcasm *cough*). No but seriously, Hoodie has amazing opinions on so much stuff and he's not afraid to tell people what he thinks and that's one more reason why I love him that much.